The Middle East

Israel politics

A little ray of light?

WHEN Israeli-Palestinian talks resume in Jerusalem on August 14th, the familiar chorus of Jewish national-religious protesters could prove unusually faint. For over two decades they have sought to torpedo a two-state settlement with the Palestinians, and in 2005 led a campaign of civil disobedience in an attempt to scupper Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. True to tradition, Naftali Bennett, the head of the Jewish Home party, which represents settlers and the national-religious camp more broadly, threatened to pull out of government ahead of the latest resumption of talks. “The Jewish Home party under my leadership will not be a partner, for so much as a second, in a government that agrees to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 lines,” he said on the eve of negotiations. But for all his bark, Mr Bennett, who is also the minister for trade, opted to keep his government seat.

The reasons are manifold. Firstly, expectations that the negotiations will lead anywhere are low. Why make a fuss when the prospects for an agreement seem so dismal, ask some settlers, who previously rallied against any talks which discussed their withdrawal from their West Bank homes.

Settlers and their supporters have also secured a possible safeguard against the implementation of any potential agreement. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has legislated that any deal be put to a referendum. Polls have given mixed readings as to how such a referendum might go, but settlers jubilantly point to a recent one which suggests that most Israelis would vote against withdrawing to 1967 lines. Moreover, Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has promised the national-religious camp to continue building in some existing settlements. On August 11th Israel’s housing ministry announced the construction of nearly 1,200 new homes, in an attempt to appease those who oppose Israel’s concurrent approval of the release of 100 Palestinian prisoners. The statement prompted criticism from former Israeli negotiators, America and the EU, as well as Palestinians, though John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, urged the Palestinians not to react adversely to the plans and called on all parties to proceed with the talks.

But perhaps the strongest reason for the quiescence of the national-religious is fear of losing their clout. On paper, the national-religious camp appears to be Israel’s most powerful. The Jewish Home party holds 10% of the Knesset’s seats and settlers occupy prominent places in Yesh Atid, the centrist party led by a former television presenter, Yair Lapid. But the pro-settler lobbies also exercise a commanding hold over Israel’s largest party, Mr Netanyahu’s Likud. National-religious voters dominate Likud's membership. Of the 60,000 members who turn out to vote for the party, some 22,000 are national-religious and vote en masse. No parliamentarian won a place on Likud’s list without their support.

Yet the ability to break ranks is limited. The fate of Kadima is a sharp reminder of how quickly voters can tire of renegades. That party splintered from Likud in 2005, won 29 seats in 2006 and led the government, but within two elections had all but disappeared, garnering just two seats in elections earlier this year. Mr Bennett’s threats to quit the cabinet seem similarly hollow. Were he to leave, Mr Netanyahu could turn to the ultra-orthodox party, Shas, which has 11 seats, or even Labour, whose leader Shelly Yachimovich says she would support Mr Netanyahu if he negotiates a two-state settlement. Instead of Uri Ariel, a settler from Kfar Adumim in the West Bank, as housing minister, settlers might have a secular anti-settlement Labour politician.

Even the normally unruly far-right rabbis, who consider themselves the spiritual leaders of Jewish Home, have proved uncharacteristically pragmatic and have tempered their demands for Mr Bennett to leave government. Were they to undermine Mr Bennett’s populist leadership, they know that the Jewish Home representation in parliament could collapse from the 12 seats they currently have to four.

All of which offers a rare ray of light for negotiations which already seem marred in recrimination. A government without the settler lobbyists may have greater room for manoeuvre to secure an agreement with the Palestinians. But out of government, settler politicians would probably prove far bigger spoilers.

For a simple reason: Israel is a liberal democracy in which all citizens are equal before the law: black and white, men and women, Arab and Jew, religious and secular, short people and tall people. All!!
P.S. One can't say the above about ANY of the Muslim-Arab states that surround Israel!!

According to the local rabbi (in Singapore) in Jewish religious law, many Jews are actually Mamzer's - i.e., bastard Jews. This was also explained to me by a Jewish lady (she is from Poland - she is my neighbor in Singapore) who is married to a Uighur Chinese. She says that in the Mishnah Kilayim there was an obsession with genetic mixtures. Seeking genetic purity, I presume??? Hence the child born to a Jewish mother with a gentile husband is a "Mamzer" - i.e., offspring of a forbidden union who is a Jew, but is prohibited from marrying a native born Jew. With an increase in the number of Jewish women who are marrying gentiles, there is a huge number of Manzer's being born - in Europe and Asia. These kids would have to marry non-Jews?? Therefore, many of the Jews are actually Mamzer's - in Israel, there are "genetic purity laws" designed to prevent Mamzer's from being conceived.

In 2000 Israeli PM Barak offered the Palestinians a peace deal, with a state based on 1967 borders. Arafat rejected that offer.
In 2009 Israeli PM Olmert offered the Palestinians a peace deal, with a state based on 1967 borders. Abbas rejected that offer.
In 2005 Israeli PM Sharon dismantled all Israeli settlements in Gaza, and withdrew all Israeli presence from Gaza. But the Palestinian rocket attacks did not cease, only intensified. In 2007, when Hamas took over in a bloody coup, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza to stop arms smuggling.

These were three major peace initiatives made by Israel.
How many of them were thwarted by Jewish national-religious protesters? None.
How many of them were reciprocated by the Palestinian leadership? None.
The Economist might want to examine the Palestinian leadership, and its commitment to peace, instead of the usual censuring of the Israeli right.

The discourse of the Colonial Past of South Africa has nothing to compare to the Jewish Settlement in their Ancestors' Land. The beginning is different and therefore the end will be different.
As far as "Human Rights" granted to minorities, please note that the Christian, Druse, or Muslim Minorities have rights in the State of Israel that no one, even the Whites, have in South Africa. Your research is lousy. Please try harder.

Settlers? How can you settle a land which already has cities, towns and villages and millions of inhabitants?

If someone were to show up in London and start building homes wherever they wanted to with no regard for the current inhabitants they would hardly be called "settlers". The correct term would be squatters -- but maybe that's only a term reserved for use by superior races when their cities, towns and villages are "settled" by inferior races.

Israel will not be destroyed; Not by Wars of Extermination, and not by "Peace Proceses". Jews cannot be destroyed. We are well aware that the "Jewish Left" is making all kind of concessions and promises. Nothing will come out of it. We have a country to build. We have no patience for concessions. Not to Hitler, not to Stalin, and not to Arrafat.

Right on, baby. The Europeans and Arabs are both sinking civilizations while the Jews are arising from the ashes to build the only stable, prosperous country in the Middle East that has a bright future. The enemies of Israel can dream on about throwing Jews into the sea, but those days are over - for both the Europeans and the Arabs. Boo hoo hoo.

It is not possible to read the 'grande finale' of this stupid article without laughing out loudly (LOL for short):
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"A government without the settler lobbyists may have greater room for manoeuvre to secure an agreement with the Palestinians. But out of government, settler politicians would probably prove far bigger spoilers".
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The great writer, scholar and thinker N.P. who scribbled this tosh either has no idea or deliberately keeps mum about the iron clad fact: any agreement which the Israeli government will secure with or without settler lobbyists will be immediately spoiled by the so called Palestinians - as usual.

The fact is, Back in 1947, the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin Al Huseini wanted to do just that to the Jews. He even traveled to Berlin and met Hitler - not only "kick all the Jews", but extend the Holocaust to Palestine as well.

South Africa wanted a "Two State Solution" too in which it warehoused unwanted indigenous people in their own "states" it essentially controlled but there wasn't much future to that "solution" either. The there's the National Zionism "final solution" of cleansing Eretz Israel of undesirable, inferior ethnicities but it's hard to imagine the West's moral blind spot being large enough to avoid seeing the travesty in that. That leaves the only real solution which is to recognize that all people have the inalienable right to live as emancipated human beings on the land of their birth and any dreams of ethnicially pure enclaves should be tossed back in the dustbin of history where they belong.

The "settler parties" - which ones, as there isn't a single political party in Israel that is not open to all of its citizens?! - simply expect international law to be adhered, and I find thing wrong with that.

It was the San Remo conference decisions, 1920, and then the League of Nations act, 1922, that assigned 23% of the country to be, and I quote, "the national home for the Jewish people". These acts of international law were then adopted by the UN and etched into its charter, 1945, assigning that part of the country located between the Jordan River and the Med. sea to the Jewish people, where Jews may settle at will.

Why is adherence to the fundamental elements of international law in this context a phenomenon some view as negative?

Indeed, why adhering to UN Security Council Resolution, 242, 1967, on the basis of which all peace talks have been conducted, a negative matter. 242, let us note, doesn't call for the setting up of an additional state between the Jordan River and the Med. Sea, nor does 242 even mention concepts such as "Palestine", "Palestinians" or a "Palestinian state"? This latest concept, of course came into being once the Palestinian Arab state of Jordan came into being on 77% of the territory by the name of Palestine/Eretz Israel, and this too is part of international law.

Not all Iraeli Arabs are equal in front of the law although I do think that Israel does better than most of its neighbors. That said, there is no excuse to mistreating the non-Israeli Arabs who live in the WB. Effectively, they are kept in limbo without a state and without any rights under Israeli law. This is where Israel is practicing apartheid. Not de jure but de facto.

Anyhow, equating Israel to South Africa is almost as ridiculous as a blanket defense of Israel’s settlement policies in the West Bank. Apartheid-era South Africa oppressed the vast majority of its own citizens on the basis of race. Israel oppresses a far smaller proportion of de jure foreigners. It just isn’t as bad.

The Bedouin in the Negev have one official wife and two or three other wives, from each they have four or five children. Can't wait to see the Palestinians doing the same as their "patriotic duty" in a one state solution. And morons like you will be screaming "please give us a two state solution! we didn't know that Muslim law allows for more than one wife!"
But too late, by then they will be a Palestinian one state solution.

I don't need any "ray of light" to see what Israel's intentions are: to realize their dream of a "Greater Israel". The ever-expanding illegal settlements speak for themselves, whatever the mighty Israeli propaganda machine and its echo-chambers (whom we like to call "the Western media") might say. Those who keep writing about "rays of light" (whatever this ever meant, in any event) are clearly being disingenuous.